


Learn How To Live While Half Alive

by Measured



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Five Stages of Grief, Gen, Present Tense, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-11-09 06:44:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11099067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured/pseuds/Measured
Summary: The screams linger in his mind a long time after the flames have died down.





	Learn How To Live While Half Alive

**Author's Note:**

> fic_promptly: Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Sephiran, "Every whisper, of every waking hour, I'm choosing my confessions" Spoilers. I originally started this for the FE Anthology which never really came about.
> 
> Thanks to Joss for betaing, and Myaru for some last minute catches.

_Denial._

The screams linger in his mind a long time after the flames have died down. He has always been especially sensitive–some say by being blessed by the goddess's own hand. Now, this blessing has him gripping at his robes as he feels another echo of terror and pain rush over him.

The ashes burn his feet. He walks across the heat, past the smell of burning hair, skin and feathers–a scent which will linger in his waking nightmares for as long as he lives. He walks to the ruins of the altar and closes his eyes. The stone is still faintly warm. He lays his head against it, black hair splayed over the intricate designs.

They are a people of peace. They have never raised a weapon. They have kept to themselves.

The last of Altina's daughters is gone now. He felt the moment she was snuffed out. All he could think in that second as her life ebbed was a whispered apology to his wife.

_This isn't happening, this isn't..._

Lehran lulls himself to sleep again. All he need to do is wake. This will go away. The flames, the screams–it was merely an unholy night terror. He will close his eyes and everything will go backwards, flames curling up into themselves, the silver dagger floating into nothingness away from where it cut her throat.

For that brief moment before sleep, between dreaming and waking, he almost believes it.

He wakes upon cold stones, the taste of ash in his mouth. The forest is dead silent. No birdsong above. No feel of the plants and their steady hum. Nothing.

_Anger._

His cloak smells thick of ash and death. He pulls it closer around him as he travels, until every pore of his skin reminds him. Each step is his dirge. He feels taut, pulled too tight, as if might scream himself hoarse.

But, no. This will not do. He is a Heron. He is a creature of peace and balance. He feels unbearably old, suddenly, and curses his lifespan and this whole wicked race which always turns to fighting each other.

The same rant turns over and over in his mind:

_Do they ever learn? This is the same thing that caused the first flood!_

The smouldering ruins of Serenes is the only reply to this unasked question. Mankind will always hold the same hate, the same ignorance. It's been hundreds of years, and he's still amazed at how little has changed.  
  
_Bargaining._

His hands are raw from the staff he holds. His feet are blistered. The smell of smoke remains. Lehran takes camp away from the beorc, away from anyone. He does not make a fire–if he never sees another fire in his life, it'll be too soon. Instead, he pulls his cloak closer to fend off the cold. If he is eaten, then so be it. He is the last of his species, as it is. It is an unbearable loneliness,

He prays that night.

_You made the firmament, and you can remake it. You can punish them, and end our suffering._

He begs between tears for just a sign. Something. He prays until morning light is grey in the skies.

There is no reply.  


_Depression._

He doesn't remember when he reaches the castle. He thinks there must have been some interception, some meeting halfway; though, this is absurd, because Dheginsea would never let his men amongst the beorc. Somehow, he has arrived here, though large parts of his memory seem whited out. Or perhaps they are simply extraneous–what does it matter how he got here? His home is gone, his brethren wiped out.

Never to return.

All he has left is their echoing last thoughts, their desperate pleas to a goddess who can no longer hear them.

People have been talking to him—at him. He nods sometimes, but does not turn around. He phases in and out, barely conscious.

The first voice to break through the haze is Dhengsea. His voice is deep rumble--strict, forceful and impossible to ignore. He inclines his head ever so slightly as Dhengsea clears his throat.

"You aren't eating," Dhengsea notes.

Lehran does not look away from the window he has been staring out of for the past five hours. Birds have flitted in and out of his room, through the open cavity of its windows. They have taken away the seeds and berries that the dragon king so painstakingly gathered for him.

"I am not hungry," Lehran says flatly. It is the first thing he has said all day. There was no song, no prayers to the goddess who _sleeps_ and cannot hear the cry of her children. Even when, what of it? Would she flood the as she once did? Gods cannot be trusted in the affairs of mankind. Only they themselves can end this suffering.

Prickles of displeasure hit him, for his empathy has not been stolen from him like his song.  
But what can Dhengsea say for comfort? That their suffering will be repaid by the slumbering goddess? That they will go on to a better place? That their suffering will not be in vain?

The dragons are not a race of liars. Dheginsea is no different, so he says nothing. Lehran feels worry, irritation, anger through the air.

He closes his eyes, and Dheginsea lingers a while before leaving. Other people come and go. Flowers bloom and die. Spring turns into summer. He is numb and held together by a silk cocoon.

He focuses on the birds outside. Sometimes they even feed from his hand.

He tries not to focus on their feathers too much, because that only reminds him of the smell of burnt feathers, burnt skin, and then he curls up and closes his eyes until the day passes and he can be empty again.

_Acceptance._

Herons are creatures of balance. They are not creatures of war. In the last battles, he was a supporter, a singer, a healer. He never stole a single life, and even Altina had to dissuade him with a lopsided, faintly amused grin that he shouldn't be healing their enemies.

But he has lived a long time. He knows the patterns these short-lived beorc forget. In his mind, through the foggy haze, shapes begin to form:

––A false country, a false name with false peerage.

—A new apostle groomed and guided to what their world needs.

—an ally who is willing to be loyal even unto death.

—the destruction the goddess should have dealt years ago.

The world is too old, its twisted ways of hatred ever repeating. Lehran thinks it would be merciful to save them from more wars, more massacres. As the elder Heron, as one who walked with the goddess herself, Lehran feels it is his duty, even calling, to finish this world.

He can no longer walk among them, but he knows enough of the old magic to obscure himself. He could influence them, bit by bit. He knows the old tales, the unlocking of the medallion.

It will only be a matter of time. And then, finally, there can be that empty, beautiful peace that he finds when he has wiped himself clean and erased the last traces of everything he has once known. _Nothingness_ , he thinks. _How beautiful._  



End file.
